Long Kiss Goodbye
by rukiargh
Summary: "I wish I could tell you, but I can't find the words." Naruino.
1. i wish i could tell you

Ino's heart is heavy when he smiles at her. "You're such a good friend, Ino-chan!" He exclaims loudly, and she smiles back even if she's dying inside because that would be all he'd ever think of her. A good friend. Her pale eyes watched as he walked out of the store to give Sakura the bouquet he had just bought.

That night, she sat on her windowsill, watching as couples walked past hand in hand. The same phrase had been repeating in her mind all day. _You're such a good friend, Ino-chan! _Honestly, she didn't know what to feel anymore. Everything just started to hurt. She told Asuma she wouldn't lose to Sakura in love or ninjutsu, but it seemed like she had no chance of winning this battle.

"Ino, Sakura's here!" Her mother called. The blonde simply rolled her eyes, practicing faking a smile before leaving her room to greet her friend. She had forgotten that they had planned a sleepover tonight. It took all her power not to start screaming at Sakura about how lucky she was. She seemed to notice, because she asked, "Hey, is something wrong?"

"Nah," she lied casually, ignoring the pressing stare of her best friend. "Say, did Naruto ever give you those flowers he bought today?" The words left her mouth bitterly, even if she hadn't meant them to. She winced and hoped that Sakura didn't notice her tone.

"Flowers?" Sakura questioned. "I didn't get any flowers from him today or yesterday or the week before.. Hell, the month before," she said, putting two and two together slowly. "Piggy.. you don't have feelings for Naruto, do you?" Oh, her best friend knew her too well. Ino stayed quiet, not able to really express what she was thinking.

"Honestly, forehead, I wish I could tell you, but I can't find the words," she admitted quietly, a smile forming on her face to hide the pain she felt. "It's okay! He wouldn't like me back, ne? I've heard he and Hinata have got it going on well.." Lie. Lie. Lie.

"You were the one who told me that Hinata and Kiba seem like they've got something going on, Ino.."

"Stop!" Ino screeched, finally breaking. "You know what? I guess I love him or something because every day he walks in my damn shop to buy flowers, it makes my morning a little better but then it hurts to realize those flowers go to you or whoever the _hell _they go to! And dammit, Sakura! I just can't get a single break with boys. I'm not as amazing as you and I'm not as pretty as you or Hinata or Tenten or anyone! I'm not significant enough for anyone to love and it really fucking sucks!" The truth felt like another stab in the heart. In the middle of her screaming, she had started to cry, and now she was being hugged by her best friend.

"You're beautiful, Ino. You're head interrogator and you've surpassed Ibiki and your dad, easily. If boys can't see that, then they don't deserve you pining after them," Sakura answered softly, pulling away.

Little did they know that at the boy's night out, Naruto sneezed loudly. "Someone's talking shit about you, huh, Naruto?" Kiba snickered. The blonde only shook his head.

"Or it's his allergies. All the pollen from those flowers.." Sai said, as if it were no big deal. But, it was a pretty big deal, because they too had noticed that Naruto always came out of the Yamanaka flower shop with a bouquet of flowers, smiling like an idiot. All their eyes came to look at him, now.

"What's going on between you and Ino, huh?" Kiba pressed further, a smirk already forming.

"N-nothing," he answered, scratching the back of his head. "I wish I could tell you, but I can't find the words," Naruto explained slowly, choosing his words well.

"Ah, we see. You don't kiss and tell."

The conversation between his relationship with Ino ended there, and he was glad. He was not ready to talk about it. He came there every day just to talk to her. Their conversations would sometimes be as brief as just a greeting, or be as long as Ino's shift. _I love her, _he thought then. _I love her, but she loves Sasuke. Or does she..? _

A sigh escaped his lips and he didn't notice that his fists were clenched. He excused himself, saying he was sick and walked to his apartment, thinking. When he entered his apartment, he quickly picked up the bouquet of flowers and left.

The next morning, Ino woke up to, "Piggy, someone left something for you!" She wasn't really one to wake up early, another thing that were opposites in. Dragging her feet into the kitchen, she saw the bouquet she had arranged yesterday with a sloppily written, _I love you. _

She had never smiled so brightly at six in the morning before.

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><p>an: hi! i'm starting a long kiss goodbye series for ino ships woowowowoow.

disclaimer: i do not own the song "long kiss goodbye" or naruto.


	2. i have this nagging feeling

"I have this nagging feeling that I'll never see you again."

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><p>Shooting stars, Ino had thought, were completely useless. It had been a year. A year of <em>wishing <em>for him to come home. A year filled with wishes varying from shooting stars, 11:11, or to birthday cakes (she had blown out Shikamaru's candles, too. Just to make sure.) But a year had passed of Sasuke being gone, and it didn't look like he would come home anytime soon.

In all honestly, only good things had come out of him leaving. Naruto had decided to go training, she and Sakura had mended their friendship, and she wasn't wasting her time chasing after him anymore. But her heart still tugged at the idea of him.

The idea of him. That was all she would ever be in love with. She had a dream that Sasuke would be her knight in shining armor. That he would save Konoha and everyone would fall in love with him, but he'd pick her. He'd pick Ino because she graduated top of the class with him and she came from a good clan and she was extremely beautiful. They'd argue all the time, she had concluded. They'd argue all the time because she was day and he was night.

So because she yearned for a happy ending with him, she kept on wishing. Wishing for him to come home.

"He's gotten taller," was the only thing she had heard from Sakura about him. Ino didn't press her best friend any further, she couldn't imagine how she was feeling. So close. So close and _Kami_, they just can't bring him home. (This made Ino's heart hurt because if Naruto and Sakura couldn't bring him home.. how would a wish from a silly little blonde girl who never really knew him bring him home?) As they walked through the busy streets, Sakura had only one other thing to say about her teammate, "He's not going to come back."

Everybody knows that Ino goes on _those _missions. They don't know that she only lets them touch, not look, but people don't see it that way. These missions have become routine for Ino, and she takes pride in knowing that she is doing this for her village, not because she's a slut.

In all honesty, everything is suffocating her, and as she goes into a bar to come and seduce another man, the same way she always has, but it's not the same. Something is terribly off. Her pale eyes are staring at the face of Uchiha Sasuke, and she curses at herself when she notices her heart is beating faster. Her breathing suddenly becomes ragged and she could create a scene if she wanted to. She could scream at him right now and rant about how he's so _stupid _to leave Konoha. There are so many things she could do and so many things she could say, but all she does is walk and take the seat next to him.

He doesn't spare her a glance, and they keep on drinking quietly. Her heart is beating fast and she doesn't turn to her right in fear that she'll look into that face and burst out in tears. As her target comes into the bar, she stands up and whispers in his ear, "You should come home. Naruto misses you. Sakura misses you. Everyone misses you." _I miss you_. He looks confused, because he doesn't know who she is and he doesn't know what made her think that she had the right to say that to him, but when he looks, she's sitting down with someone else, giggling and twirling her hair and biting her lip. She glances at him one more time, but no more after that.

When she came home from her mission, she sat on her bed, her eyes threatening to spill out tears, but they never come out. She promised herself a long time ago that tears weren't supposed to be wasted anytime she was sad. Her eyes gaze at the stars in night sky, and she spots it. She spots the shooting star and she almost wants to punch the next person she sees. A loud sigh escapes her mouth, and she figures it's better to release than the string of creative words that she had wanted to scream at the world.

So with a hurting heart and a screeching mind (because _really _there were so many other things she could've said. The possibilities were endless and she can't go back and change what she did.) she wastes another wish on the boy who will never love her back.


End file.
